Mitchell Tripp, Oregon State Baseball

In November 2010, Laurel’s own Mitchell Tripp signed with Oregon State to play baseball.  Oregon State is sitting in the upper half of the Pac 12 standings this season, 8-7 in conference and 26-12 overall at about the halfway mark of the season.  They’re ranked 19th in the college baseball writers’ poll.

Unfortunately, Mitchell injured his arm in February, right before the season, and is redshirting this year.

Despite that bad luck, all is not lost in the near term.  Mitchell plans to play with the Corvallis Knights this summer, and the Knights will be playing the Bellingham Bells in Bellingham July 3rd, 4th and 5th.  Come out and watch.

Mitchell signs his arm away to OSU

The Trojans hosted the Lyncs in the first of two meetings in 1976.  The Trojans drove a short field for their first score of the game, a 7-yard Mike Kingma run.  Future Whitworth decathlete Doug Larson added the PAT for a 7-0 first quarter lead.  Larson scored the Trojans’ second touchdown on a 38-yard strike from quarterback Ken Shockey, then added his second PAT to push the first half lead to 14-0.

Shockey intercepted his L.C. counterpart, QB Terry Kaemingk in the 3rd quarter to set up Jeff Gorsenger’s 5-yard scoring run for the final Trojan points.  The Trojan defense stifled the Lync offense for the remainder of the game to post their 2nd consecutive home shutout, 21-0.  For the game, the Lyncs completed just 3 of 12 passes for 41 yards and gained only 3 yards rushing on 25 attempts for a total of 44 yards and just 4 first downs.  Meanwhile, the Trojans rolled up 199 yards rushing and 96 passing and did not punt in the game.

Stat Stars

Ken Shockey
Passing:  4-8, 96 yards, 1 td, 1 int
Interceptions:  1-0

Mike Kingma
Rushing:  20-108, 1 td

Doug Larson
Receiving:  3-66, 1 td
PATs:  3-3
Kick-off Returns:  1-9

“It was a great meet for our kids,” Trojans assistant coach Andrea Ames said in a phone interview. “We get over here and the weather was great. We got to bring more kids with us than we would have if we had gone to Snohomish or Pasco, and we posted some really good times with the good weather and a fast track.”

Other notables were Neal Tilbury taking third in the discus and Spencer Blackburn throwing 157-3 in the javelin for third.

As far as anyone can remember, this is also the first time the Meridian boys have beaten Kings in a meet.  Lynden was 4th with 87 points and King’s was 5th with 69.

Denver’s throw in March of 185-10 is second best in 1A currently, with Connell’s Hadley the Younger holding the top mark of 195-2.  For all classifications, Denver is 10th.

Bellingham Herald: Schmitt, Vander Yacht lead Meridian to win at Cashmere Invite

3rd Annual
Big Kahuna Kickoff Classic 2012

Saturday, July 28, 2012

North Bellingham Golf Course, 9AM Shotgun Start

The Big Kahuna Kickoff Classic golf tournament, sponsored by the Meridian Football Boosters, is an annual fundraiser with proceeds going to the football team as well as the “Big Kahuna” Scholarship Endowment. Be sure to check out some of the fun last year in the photo gallery.

Bookmark the permanent page on this site for updates.

Find the event on Facebook.

Cougfan.com Photo

On paper, the Mike Leach Airraid offense would not be the ideal situation for a large though athletic tight end.  Leach teams are typically 4- and 5-wide with the offensive line splits so wide there’s really no room for a tight end.  Thus there was some concern in Laurel for what this meant for our favorite Cougar, Andrei Lintz.

While Andrei had become comfortable of his place with in the new Cougar system within the locker room, we got public notice of how Leach sees Andrei’s role during a KJR interview Monday afternoon.  Leach used words like “beast,” “violent hands,” and “release the hounds” in a glowing two minute portion of the interview.  You can listen to the full interview here.

Since then, the Cougar was out of the bag, so to speak, and the rest of the Coug media corps has rushed to match Leach’s endorsements.

From CougCenter.com:

Andrei Lintz: He’s been more a blocking tight, but look for Lintz to break out. Right now, he looks like Leach’s x-factor, a guy that can move around, play a bunch of different positions and create some matchup problems in the route. Lintz is more athletic than most realize, and Leach seems to be enamored with him.

And CougFan.com:

Mike Leach‘s offense doesn’t really employ tight ends but a big receiver who can make plays? Leach covets those guys regardless of body-type. And Andrei Lintz, listed as a 6-5, 252-pound tight end, impressed Leach in a big way on Day 2. Oh, and by the way, he also likes what he’s seen from Kristoff Williams.

“Other guys to keep an eye on, Kristoff Williams and Andrei Lintz. Andrei Lintz had a huge day. Andrei Lintz caught more balls in the last practice than anybody. This guy’s a monster, he’s like 6-5, 255, something like that. He’s smooth, runs well, good hands,” said Leach.

And a full article in the Spokesman Review on Tuesday:

Andrei Lintz was not particularly encouraged by the film he was watching.

Washington State had just hired Mike Leach as its head coach, so Lintz, a 6-foot-5, 252-pound senior tight end, dug up some highlights of Leach’s teams at Texas Tech.

What he saw seemed like a problem.

“Holy cow,” Lintz thought. “Every guy that’s playing receiver is like 205 (pounds). There’s not that many people my size.

“I didn’t know if I was going to get moved to defense or if they were even going to have a spot for me.”

After three practices this spring, it appears as if Lintz was wrong. Very wrong. So wrong, in fact, that not only has Leach raved about Lintz’s size, hands and blocking ability, but inside receivers coach Eric Morris said that if the season started today, Lintz would be WSU’s starting right inside receiver.

“No question,” Morris said. “He’d play every play until he got tired.”

Finally, the WSU sports information people posted two interviews following Tuesday practice, one with Coach Leach saying a little more about Andrei, and then the Hound Releaser himself in a 2 minute interview.

From the Bellingham Herald:

Meridian Outslugs Mount Baker, 31-18

Bob Ames was talking to the officials before Friday night’s Whatcom County League football game between his Meridian Trojans and the Mount Baker Mountaineers:

“They (Mount Baker ) have a pretty good team.  I don’t think we’ll have any trouble.  It should be a pretty clean game.”

So much for prophecy.  Ames had best stick to coaching.

Clean it was not.  In fact, at times it threatened to get so dirty that detergents, laundry additives and “stronger than dirt” products would throw in the towel–and a dirty towel at that.

The two teams combined for 194 yards in penalties and nearly as many punches as a Muhammad Ali championship fight.  Meridian came up with some of the biggest football-type punches, however, to take a 31-18 WCL decision.

The win kept the Trojans at the top of the league and assured Ames his first winning season as a head coach.  Meridian is now 6-1.

“What happened, I think,” reflected Baker coach Bob Wilkinson, “was that they (Meridian) had a couple of guys playing pretty rough in the first quarter.  That ruffled the feathers on a few of our guys.  I don’t think it got out of hand, but there was a lot of shoving going on.”

One Mountie, Dan Tyler, was ejected and a couple more players from each team barely escaped the same fate.  Neither coach, however was angry at his counterpart.

“You never think your guys are doing it,” Ames said, “but we’ve got films to look at and if any of our guys were playing dirty, we’ll catch them.  It just got a little hot out there.  I was pleased with some of our discipline, though.  We could have had a couple of big fights and our guys just walked away.”

That discipline is what Ames feels is the key difference between a team that went 0-10 last year and is 6-1 now with basically the same personnel.

The Trojans, of course, have a little talent to back up that discipline.  Sophomore Dudley Nightingale rambled for 105 yards and a touchdown and quarterback Ken Shockey ran for another and completed five passes for 139 yards and two more scores.

The Meridian defense also sacked Mount Baker quarterback Marty Wilburn six times and pressured quite a few throws.  When Wilburn did get the time, the Mountaineer junior completed 10 passes for 174 yards and all three Baker scores.

“I thought we played hard and well,” Wilkinson said, “but it wasn’t a well-executed game for us.  We keep beating ourselves.  A lot of those penalties were stupid–just fundamental things done wrong.”

The game was a contrast of sorts.  Fans were funneled to the field through the Baker fieldhouse, and the first thing one sees upon entering that dome are several pictures of championship MB grid teams.  In past years, Baker-Meridian games were usually Mountie routs.

But Friday, the Trojans fans jammed the south sidelines while the Baker fans were clumped together in sparse patches, with big gaps of empty hardwood benches.

“It’s a great feeling,” Ames said.  ”I’m seeing people I never knew graduated from Meridian.  But we’re not claiming the championship yet.  We figure we’re 2-0 in the second half and we’ve got three tough games left.  We’re a good, solid tam but we’ve got to keep proving it.”

The Trojans proved it enough on Friday night.  They used big plays to set up every touchdown.  They then finally shut off a determined Mountie upset bid by breaking away from a 19-18 margin via a 78-yard screen pass from Shockey to Doug Larson for a touchdown and a 31-yard scoring run by Jeff Gorsenger.

The win also avenged Meridian’s only loss of the season.

Stat Stars

Ken Shockey
Passing:  5-10, 139 yards, 2 tds, 1 int
Rushing:  15-72, 1 td
Punt Returns:  3-0

Dudley Nightingale
Rushing:  18-105, 1 td

Doug Larson
Receiving:  2-79, 1 td
Punt Returns:  1-2
Punting:  4-132

Dale Wasel
Receiving:  2-50, 1 td
Kick-off Returns:  1-8

WCL rivals Meridian and Mt. Baker met just once in the middle of the 1988 season in Deming, with the Trojans bringing an unblemished 4-0 record into the contest.  The Trojans stymied the Mountaineers’ first possession with Kelly Thrift intercepting Baker QB Ken Gates’s first pass of the game.  Todd Pfannenstiel’s 41-yard run on the Trojans’ first possession set up Kirk Palmberg’s 33-yard field goal and 3-0 1st quarter lead.  The rest of the 1st half would go back and forth until the Trojans struck at the end of the 2nd quarter with junior quarterback Victor Nelson connecting with Thrift on a 35-yard touchdown for a 10-0  halftime lead.

The 2nd half was dominated by the Trojan defense, which didn’t allow a completion to Gates until the final drive of the game.  The Trojans final score came at the end of the 3rd quarter when senior Travis Bass scored from 15 yards out for the Trojans final points of the game.  The game was turned over to the Trojans’ reserves in the 4th quarter who preserved the shutout, the ’88 Trojans’ 2nd of the season.  Although not a huge offensive explosion for the Trojans, they outgained Baker by 50 yards and held the Mounties to just 2 completions in 9 pass attempts and just 3.8 yards per rush to earn their 4th straight victory in the series.

Stat Stars

Todd Pfannenstiel
Rushing:  16-78

Kelly Thrift
Receiving:  4-103, 1 td
Interceptions:  1-20

The Trojans traveled to Granite Falls looking to clinch the league title in the first season of the newly-created North Cascades Conference, a combination of the the WCL and Cascade League.  The Trojans entered at 8-0 and looked for a 5th consecutive win over the host Tigers in the series.  The Trojans started the fire works early, as senior QB Wade Koning fired a 51-yard touchdown pass to senior all-stater Dominic Chambers for a 7-0 lead.  The Trojan aerial show continued into the 2nd quarter with Koning throwing 16 yards to Josh Randall, then 20 yards to sophomore Jeff Bennum, with Randall adding a 28-yard field goal for a 23-0 halftime lead, which also saw the Trojan defense limit the Tiger offense and do-it-all senior Lars Axberg to just 30 yards and 3 first downs.

The Trojans began the third quarter with a bang as well, with Koning finding Chambers for an 81-yard score, the longest pass and reception for each in their careers.  Koning capped the third quarter scoring with a 38-yard scamper for a 37-0 3rd quarter lead.  The Tigers would get on the score board late, trapping Bennum in the end zone for a safety to avoid what would have been their 3rd shutout at the hands of the Trojans in as many years.

For the game, the Trojans held Axberg to just 1-11 passing and 7 yards while intercepting him 3 times and allowing him just 16 yards rushing on 23 attempts.  All told, the Tigers completed just 2 of 14 passes for just 9 yards and rushed for only 46 yards on 40 rushes for a total of 55 yards for the game on 54 plays.  The Trojan offense was equally impressive, with Koning establishing school records at the time of 289 yards passing and 4 touchdowns (both since broken), and his average of 28.9 yards per completion continues to stand as the top mark in school history.  Chambers’s 174 yards receiving was a also a record and continues to rank in the top 10 receiving performances for a Trojan in a game.  Finally, the Trojans 15 penalties against them also established a record since broken.

Stat Stars

Wade Koning
Passing:  10-15, 289 yards, 4 tds, 1 int
Rushing:  6-31, 1 td
Interceptions: 1-0

Jeff Bennum
Receiving:  1-20, 1 td
Interceptions:  1-5

Dominic Chambers:
Receiving:  5-174, 2 tds
Interceptions:  1-10
Punt Returns:  3-18

Bear Cochran
Receiving:  1-52
Punting:  1-18

The 2006 Trojans earned a trip into the state playoffs with a final game win over Lynden Christian to finish the regular season an unblemished 10-0.  The league championship earned them the right to host a first round state playoff game at Civic Stadium against 2003 Semi-Final opponent the Lacenter Wildcats.  The Wildcats’ “Double-Wing” phone-booth-football approach to offense would present a stiff challenge for the Trojans.  The Wildcats’ approach was to hold on to the ball on offense and not let the Trojans’ high-octane attack possess it–a plan that all involved in the game were well-aware.

The Trojans scored opened the game with a score, driving 60 yards in 12 plays, with Sean Hurlbut scoring on an 8-yard run for a 7-0 lead.  The Trojans forced a Lacenter punt after 8 plays of the Wildcats’ initial drive, but the Lacenter punt team forced a Hurlbut fumble that they recovered.  They then proceeded to run off 11 more plays, all of the remainder of the first quarter clock and a third of the second quarter before they finally scored on a short run.  The Wildcats gamely went for 2 on the conversion try and were successful to lead the Trojans  8-7.

On their next possession, the Trojans failed to convert a 4th-down opportunity at midfield and gave the Wildcats the ball with less than 6 minutes on the first half clock.  Lacenter then proceeded to milk the clock down to nearly nothing while methodically running 12 more plays to the Meridian 20.  Forced finally to the air, the Hurlbut intercepted an errant Wildcat aerial at the end of the half to limit the damage as the the Trojans found themselves down at halftime for the first time all season.

The third quarter opened as the 1st and 2nd quarters ended, with the Wildcats grinding out yardage 1 and 2 yards at a time, driving again deep into Trojan territory.  The defense stiffened, led by the stalwart play of Andrei Lintz, who frequently was able to run down Wildcat ball carriers from behind on their staple “Super Power” play.  After forcing a Wildcat turnover on downs at their own 33, the Trojan offense showed an incredible explosiveness on the ground.  QB Tyler Slesk opened the drive with a 16-yard run, followed by 17 and 24-yard bursts by senior Connor Herman, and then immediately capped by a 10-yard Herman run.  The 67-yard, 4-play drive on the ground gave the Trojans a 13-8 lead, as they failed on the conversion attempt.  The next Wildcat drive began as the last few had, with grinding, patient runs into Trojan territory, until senior Jack Chambers made perhaps the play of the game for the Trojan defense.  With a  4th and 3 inside the Meridian 45, Chambers knifed through two Wildcat blockers to make a critical tackle on the Wildcat sideline to thwart what had looked to be a game-turning drive.  The Trojans went right back to work, now in the 4th quarter, driving inside the Lacenter 20.  Facing a third down, Slesk fired a short pass to senior Zack Bedford, who shook two tacklers and raced 18 yards for the clinching score.  A Slesk-to-Brett Himes pass for the 2-point conversion gave the Trojans the breathing room they would need at 21-8.  Forced to take to the air, the Wildcats sputtered, and the Trojans held on for the victory and the right to advance to the state quarterfinals.

Statistically, the game was relatively even, with the Wildcats running far more plays than the Trojans (62 to 41), but completed just 5 of their 12 pass attempts for just 49 yards.  The balanced Trojans did outgain the Wildcats by 60 yards with a balanced output (180 rushing, 84 passing) and did not punt in the game.

Stat Stars

Tyler Slesk
Passing:  10-13, 84 yards, 1 td, 0 ints
Rushing:  12-49

Connor Herman
Rushing:  9-74, 1 td

Sean Hurlbut
Rushing:  7-57, 1 td
Receiving:  1-10
Punt Returns:  2-29
Interceptions:  1-0

Johnny Murphy and Denver VanderYacht were officially selected for the 2012 Earl Barden All-State Game last Friday.  Denver was selected as offensive/defense linemen and Johnny as running back/linebacker.

The game will take place June 23 in Yakima.